


DVD Commentary: Alternative pipe-cleaning methods

by cupidsbow



Series: Writing Meta [1]
Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: DVD Commentary Challenge, Meta, Other, Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 13:29:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17305469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupidsbow/pseuds/cupidsbow
Summary: This is an overview of my approach to writing the storyAlternative pipe-cleaning methods(Symbrock, NC-17). Obviously, there are spoilers for that story here.





	DVD Commentary: Alternative pipe-cleaning methods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [everysecondtuesday (tuesday)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/gifts), [Brancher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brancher/gifts).



> I don't always post my meta to the AO3, but I want to preserve this because it's about writing. To add some context that might be useful/new to some of you: I have a doctorate in creative arts, with a focus on storytelling, and this summary encapsulates a lot of my current thinking about writing fiction.

I don't think I've ever really done a proper DVD commentary for one of my fics. How odd. But [](https://everysecondtuesday.dreamwidth.org/profile)[ **everysecondtuesday**](https://everysecondtuesday.dreamwidth.org/) [asked](https://everysecondtuesday.dreamwidth.org/107522.html), "I'd love to know about your writing process on a fic of your choice," and so here we are.  
  
Deciding which fic to talk about was hard. My head is full of [Role Confusion](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1190380) (Symbrock, currently PG-13, but might be higher depending on when you read this meta), my current Venom series, and as a long-form fic in several parts, it would be ideal to talk about... if only  _I weren't still writing it_. Instead, I've picked [Alternative pipe-cleaning methods](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17186807) (Symbrock, NC-17), because while it's a short fic, I used most of the techniques I usually use for longer stories, and the choices are fresh in my mind. You should probably go read the fic before you read the commentary below, or it won't make much sense. It won't take long. :)  
  
For stories under 2000 words, I often just throw words at the page, starting from a snippet of an idea -- [The closest thing to a perfect man (is made of gingerbread)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17071085) (Symbrock, PG-13) is an example. I was planning to write a longer fic for this [Exchange](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Symbrock_Holiday_Gift_Exchange_2018), but work was crazy right up until the weekend before Christmas, so in the end I put away my notes for the longer story I'd planned out, and looked at my "emergency quick fic" notes (in this case, pics of gingerbread houses), and threw words at the page until I'd hit the word limit. I wrote it in one sitting, and I think it shows. It's not that it's a bad fic; it just lacks nuance or any real hook. It's a one-trick pony. There's a place for that, and it's far better than defaulting at the last minute, so I find the "throw words at the page" method has its uses. I mention it here as a contrast to Alternative pipe-cleaning methods (AP-CM), which is clearly the better story in terms of structure and nuance. While they both have similar wordage, AP-CM was written much the same way I write longer, more plotty stories.  
  
Below is a description of the general stages I go through in writing something like AP-CM. In reality I often cycle through the following stages a few times, rather than it being a clear linear progression, especially with longer fics.  
  
  
**Deciding on the concept**  
  
With the stories I take the time to structure, I always begin with some inciting idea that interests me, and that has enough scope to explore from a few different perspectives in the fic.   
  
With a story like Role Confusion, I come up with the seed idea myself, but it's the same kind of process with a prompt for a fest. I look at the basic idea for a bit, and turn it over in my mind, and try to find the hooks that interest me. In this case, the jumping off point for AP-CM was [a prompt ](https://symbrock.dreamwidth.org/3333.html?thread=23045#cmt23045) by  **brancher** : 

> Eddie refrains from jacking off for the first few weeks out of modesty and Venom is like “THERE IS CLEARLY SOME KIND OF BUILD-UP OF FLUID IN THIS ONE GLAND, LET US FIX THAT” and then it’s all prostate milking all the time, like ALL the time, Eddie doesn't even have normal orgasms anymore, and Eddie is like “um wait that’s not” but realizes he likes it too much to correct Venom’s misapprehension about the normal care regimen of human balls.

I love so much about this prompt, but it's also not really a prompt for the kind of story I like to write. I was stumped for a bit as a result, even though I yearned to fill it.   
  
I have written a fair bit of explicit fanfic in my time, but my forte is not the epic porn story in which the writer cleverly imbues the sex with characterisation and plot development. So while this prompt was begging for that kind of fic -- here's the first sex act which tells us about the characters, here's how the second sex act complicates their relationship, here's how the third escalates things, and so on -- I didn't have any interest in writing that fic. It would have been awesome to read, but a chore to write, and fandom is meant to be for fun, you know. Instead, I turned the prompt over in my mind, like a rock that might have cool bugs underneath it, looking for another way to approach it which did interest me.  
  
The solution in this case is that a) I love Venom learning about humans, but coming at it from a blunt and ignorant perspective, like a curious asexual bulldozer with few boundaries, and b) I love misunderstandings that the reader can see happening, but the characters can't to some degree. These two things almost mapped to Brancher's prompt, but from a slightly different perspective.   
  
  
**Deciding on the structure & theme**  
  
Once I had this general idea, I started to think about the beats of the story and how they could develop the theme. This a is fairly abstract step -- I don't write long notes or anything. I'm thinking about how I can explore the theme so that it transforms over the course of the story. I need at least three beats -- problem, complication, resolution -- and how a theme like "an asexual alien learns about masturbation" can be made fresh.  
  
In the case of AP-CM, it was a simple enough structure -- I knew that Eddie's balls had to be too full (the problem), something something with Venom misunderstanding Eddie's balls (the complication, which I hadn't entirely invented yet, I just knew it needed to go here), and the sex0rcising of Eddie's balls (the resolution). You'll note that these three beats don't actually map to the scene breaks in the story, which I discuss more below.  
  
I also always, if at all possible, try to work in an irony or reversal of some kind which flips the story's theme so that it ends up in a very different place. It should be surprising for the reader, but in a way that's totally logical in hindsight, and emotionally satisfying. In a long fic, I'd try to have a flip like this at least once a chapter, as well as at the climax. With a shorter fic, one major flip is often enough, as there's no B plot or secondary characters you can use to add nuance.  
  
For example, in the third part of Role Confusion: [Here be Monsters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17041865), the story starts by implying that Venom thinks they are the monster suggested by the title. The flip could be several different things -- Venom deciding they aren't a monster, or a different kind of monster, or the fic doubling down and making them more of a monster. The way I chose to flip it was that Venom still thinks they are a monster, but changes their understanding of the monstrous.  
  
In AP-CM, the flips are about Venom's changing understanding of how sexual pleasure works for humans -- see-sawing from a pragmatic viewpoint to hedonistic buy-in, to fear, to a more balanced approach.   
  
  
**The Occam's Razor of scene development**  
  
Once I know the basic structure and theme of the story (usually just a sketchy plan in my head, or as dot points if it's a longer fic), I start to think about what scenes I need. Or rather, because I'm a) lazy, but also b) think stories should do their job and not have excess padding, I try to come up with  _the minimum number of scenes_  I need to write to achieve my story goal.  
  
So I daydream scenes. For instance:  _Venom will discover Eddie's balls are too full and confront him about it. Ha ha ha, this is my chance to write the most ridic dialogue in the world, as Venom doesn't know the right names for any of these body parts_. And I basically amuse myself in this way, by coming up with things that I like, until I have a scene's worth of stuff that covers the needed story beats without being Basil Exposition and thwacking the reader over the head with a bunch of boring explanation.   
  
I think about how to do logistical things too:  _I want Eddie to go to the porn place and think Venom's going to suck him off... but through Venom's eyes, so the reader (who has no doubt read that fanfic a billion times) figures Eddie out, but Venom does not_. In this case I decided that I'll just have Eddie squirm and tingle and splay his legs, and Venom will notice but got Get It, because they are asexual and sex is not even on their radar other than "for breeding".  
  
Most importantly of all, I ask myself:  _Do I really need this scene? Really, truly?_  And if the answer is "no", I usually don't bother writing it, unless it's a personal indulgence and I really want to. Mostly I'm too lazy. But it also makes for a tighter and better (in my opinion) story that doesn't outstay its welcome. If there's a bit of a scene I really need, but the scene itself is overblown, I'll combine it with another scene. Mostly, though, I'll just leave it out. If I've judged it right, the reader won't need that "missing" bit to understand the story. They will read their own explanation into the white space I've left, and again, if I've judged it right, they'll find the fic more satisfying as a result.  
  
Once I've done this mulling over -- in the case of AP-CM for about a day, off and on while I digested Christmas food -- I end up with a rough map in my head. Something like this:

  * Beats 1 & 2 = Scene 1: Venom notices the problem that Eddie's balls are too full, and fixes the problem as pragmatically as possible. Make Venom not notice Eddie's porn expectations. Make the whole scene as funny & ridic as hell.
  * Transitional beat = Scene 2: Eddie strikes back, turning the story around enough to lead into the resolution, by revealing that the problem is not fixed to his satisfaction. Venom still doesn't get it. This only needs to be short. Make it funny.
  * Beat 3 and redux = Scene 3: They properly resolve the problem by doing the sex, and Venom realises they misunderstood the original problem and Eddie had a better solution; then Venom has another brief misunderstanding as an afterglow moment, which is needed to emotionally finish off this kind of fic (in my opinion). Make the sex slightly alien, which will make it hotter, but focus on Eddie's pleasure (see [frostfire's great "Hi, I'm Captain Jack Harkness"](https://cupidsbow.livejournal.com/347372.html) for why this is so).



In other words, I could encompass everything I wanted to explore on this theme in three fairly short scenes, and just a straightforward A plot from Venom's point of view.  
  
  
**Research, if needed**  
  
Not all fics need research. However, I find that the oddest things do, even in fics that look like they don't. In this case, I didn't know the name of the rat experiment I wanted to mention, so had to go look it up and make sure it was what I remembered. It turns out it's creepier than I remembered, especially as there have been a couple of human experiments along the same lines I didn't know about, oh  _god_ , BUT ANYWAY, I researched it, and the right name is in the fic.   
  
I also looked up synonyms for "sperm" before deciding I didn't like any of them and chose "worms" because it was funnier. Sometimes the best use for research is to throw it out. You need to do it to know enough not to include it. But it just bogs the fic down when you come to actually write it, so out it goes!  
  
  
**Write and revise**  
  
At this point, I sit down and just start hammering out words. I have a shape in my head, and have to turn it into a shape on the page. This is where a lot of the nuts and bolts invention happens. Will it be funnier to have Venom "say" or "agree" or "squint"? Do I want to seed in a mention of "pipes" in the first scene, or leave it until later? What's the most ridic thing I can have Venom say when they confront Eddie? Worms!!! HAHAHAHA <\-- laughing at your own jokes is a v. important stage of writing. ;)  
  
Then I go through and tidy it all up. I fix structural issues -- I realise things are in the wrong "chapters" of the story, so I copy/paste so there's better foreshadowing or whatnot; or add in bits when I realise there are holes, and Venom really needs to realise their cluelessness in the third act ("Venom starts to get an inkling that Eddie has been underplaying this whole pipe-cleaning business").   
  
Once the structure and scenes seem solid, I look for typos and sudden tense changes and that kind of thing, and fix them. I check I haven't italicised too much, or used the word "just" in every sentence. And so on.  
  
If it's a long story, there's also a beta read or two in here somewhere. But AP-CM was really a flashfic, so I didn't need all that malarkey.   
  
Finally, I post to AO3. Then I immediately discover a billion more typos and fix them. And then I wait to see if anyone else is amused by my creation.  
  
And that's how I wrote AP-CM. If you have any questions about what I've said above, the fic, or my writing process, please feel free to ask.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on DW: <https://cupidsbow.dreamwidth.org/436162.html>


End file.
